by Matt Mooney -
I'm on the Carousel that is Dublin City,
around the Spire to Middle Abbey St.,
sitting at a table outside the Oval pub,
spotting the red hop-on hop-off buses
gone by the GPO and its history told
of the tricolour that's flown from here
to make us sovereign and forever free,
on then to what’s left of Nelson’s Pillar.
The Luas warns us that it's going to go,
serving Jervis St. and Connolly Station:
flowing through the arteries of the city
and the throbbing centre of the capital.
A corner stall calls fruit and veg for all
in the real accents of the rare old times,
worthy of the women in Moore Street,
as colourful as what they've got to sell.
Christy Moore is 'standing by the ocean'
in his love sick song about Nancy Spain
in soft emotive tones deepening the day;
the floral fringe spills down on top of me
from hanging baskets for brightening up.
Counting chimney pots across the street -
there's rows of them on red brick shops
whose fronts could feature on a film set.
To a scenario with a strange denouement.
Enter, a gangly lad complete with a bottle
who has a remarkable grin from ear to ear
moving with the gait of a man inebriated,
having argy-bargy with some lady friend
saying, 'you can spend the rest of the day
looking for me now!’ and he followed her.
The homeless are not aboard the carousel
in Dublin's milieu of waist-coated waiters.
Neither were they in Brussels last night -
in the restaurants meant only for the rich.
Just a thought as I muse outside the Oval.
A native of South Galway, Matt Mooney has lived and worked in Listowel since 1966. His collections of poems are: Droving (2003), Falling Apples (2010), Earth to Earth (2015), The Singing Woods (2017), Steering by the Stars (2021), Éalú (2021).
Winner of The Pádraig Liath Ó Conchubhair Award, 2019.
Deputy Editor of The Galway Review and its Poetry Reviewer. His poems have been published in a number of literary publications including The Blue Nib, Feasta, Vox Galvia and in anthologies at home and abroad. His poems have appeared translated in spanish-language literary magazines. He continues to feature in many live and virtual poetry reading events.